February monthly round-up


Hope you're doing well. This month I posted 2 summaries and 2 blog posts.

Book summaries

  • The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitzkin (24 mins) — Waitzkin won 8 National Championships in Chess and later became a world champion in Tai Chi Push Hands. This is partly a memoir and partly a self-improvement book, explaining the principles that helped him succeed.
  • The Book of Why by Judea Pearl and Dana McKenzie (20 mins) — explains how statisticians misunderstood causality for a long time and how causal models can help us to better understand and control the world around us. A pretty complex but fascinating book.

Blog posts

Both blog posts this month are offshoots from The Book of Why. They can largely be read as standalone pieces, but the causal diagrams may be a bit confusing.

I'm currently working on a summary for Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein. While I don't usually pay close attention to the news, the events over the past month have made me want to try and better understand US politics. So you can look forward to that in a week or two.

Thanks and until next time,

To Summarise

ToSummarise.com

I summarise non-fiction books with more detail and critical analysis than you'll find elsewhere. Join my newsletter to get new summaries delivered straight to your inbox!

Read more from ToSummarise.com

I've just published a summary for The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin. The book is a bit of a denser read, explaining how changes in energy markets are reshaping geopolitics, but I found it highly educational. As usual, the key takeaways are below, and you can find the full summary by clicking the link above. KEY TAKEAWAYS Energy is a major driver of geopolitics. The shale revolution beginning in the 2010s has made the US into an energy superpower. Shale...

I'm back after a short break with a new summary for The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker. Great gatherings have so much potential to deepen our social connections and enrich our lives, yet so many gatherings frankly kind of suck. It's worth a read even if you've never thought of yourself as much of a “gatherer”. As usual, the key takeaways are below, and you can find the full summary by clicking the link above. KEY TAKEAWAYS Gatherings don’t have to suck. But...

March was a quieter month with only 2 book summaries: Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein (25 mins) — published in 2020, Ezra Klein looks at how US politics got to be so polarized. A Hacker’s Mind by Bruce Schneier (25 mins) — Schneier applies his background in computer security to looking at how market, legal, political, and cognitive systems can also be "hacked". I'm also planning to take some time off next month, so I'll see you in May! Thanks for subscribing and until next time, To Summarise